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Comment by zappchance | Hacker News Reader

If you're scared about your financial situation with over a $2M net worth either you are prone to paranoia or you're living well above your means.

I'm constantly surprised how many well-off people try to pass themselves off as "one of the poors". My family and friends do okay with a net worth way below that, in the Bay Area. I've worked minimum wage jobs here in the bay, and had co-workers actually struggling to make it to the next paycheck. It really gets on my nerves when someone in software chimes in with "we're all struggling"—No, we are not all struggling on the same level. Guess how much the person making your fast food or working at your local grocery store is making... And think about how they still live in the same city as you.

"$2M isn't that much". Man, I can't imagine what it takes to come to that conclusion.

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> If you're scared about your financial situation with over a $2M net worth either you are prone to paranoia or you're living well above your means.

As someone who was layed off and went without a job for 13 months (tech bubble), I am _always_ scared about my financial situation. Sure, if I lose my job, I have the resources to hold out while I find another, but

- It _will_ impact my lifestyle, because I'll need to be more careful about what money I spend

- It _will_ make my family unhappy, for the same reasons

- I've been in the position where it's "do we eat or pay rent next month?", and it sucks. I likely won't get back there, but the fear of getting there persists.

Look, I get it, $2M is a lot of money. But there's a fair number of people that can get to that amount (especially living in an area where a 2br dwelling is easily $1M of that), still be saving _more_ money, and still fear the idea of being out of work for months. Especially if it's a single earner household. And especially if there's children.

You intentionally moved to that area, and it even sounds like you own real estate there.

Yes, it will impact your lifestyle, and you may have to be more careful about what money you spend, depending on how you're currently spending it. So what? 99% of people on earth live like that, and most do just fine.

The fact that having to live a non >$2M net worth lifestyle would make your family unhappy sounds concerning.

1. The discussion of what I've gone through, where I am in my life, and how the idea of losing my job (again) is concerning to me... is totally separate from the discussion of someone having $2M in net worth and living in an expensive area. Neither of those are true about me.

2. The vast majority of people, if they suddenly had to live with $0 income for a while, would be concerned, regardless of how much they make now.

3. The vast majority of people, if they suddenly had to live with 1/2 their normal income, would be concerned, regardless of how much they make. People make life decisions based on their income, and having that thrown up in the air generally causes people worry and stress.

> The fact that having to live a non >$2M net worth lifestyle would make your family unhappy sounds concerning.

The phrase "$2M net worth lifestyle" does not mean anything.

A 2M net worth could be a 1.5M house (which in the bay area is a simple nondescript house) and 500K in a 401k (which you can't touch until you're 60, so it's off limits). That's it. Neither of these can be used to pay any monthly bills.

So this person with a 2M net worth (locked in assetts) is still 100% dependent on that monthly paycheck to cover all expenses.

Then you are living above your means. Having $2M in assets puts you in the top 5% in the USA, let alone with world. If you can't figure out a way to pay for food with this much money tied up in assets, you should spend some of your savings on a financial advisor.

There are literal minimum wage workers getting by in the bay. I really can't understand this obsession with not wanting to admit that you are well-off.

> There are literal minimum wage workers getting by in the bay.

And there are people that don't have a job and live off the land. Each type of person has different expectations and commitments.

- The person making $80k/year is well off compared to the person making nothing because they can't hold down a job; but they're still reasonable to be worried about losing their job, being unable to pay for their apartment, and being out on the street.

- The person making $150k/year is well off compared to the $80k person, but can have the exact same fears. Maybe they're worried about losing their house because they won't be able to pay their mortgage.

It can be very hard to pay your bills after being out of work for a year, even taking minimum jobs to help make ends meet; because people make commitments based on their earnings. And even _reasonable_ commitments can be rough if you're out of work long enough.

> I really can't understand this obsession with not wanting to admit that you are well-off.

The poster with $2M in net worth never denied they were well off. You're the one that seems to be denying that it's possible to be well off and _also_ be worried about the impact of losing your job. Your stance is... mind boggling to me.

If you're making enough to sustain a $2M net worth, either you are skilled enough to be able to find another job quickly (highly experienced individuals are always in demand) and you are just not confident enough to realize your worth—or, you are not skilled enough to get another job quickly and are being paid above your worth.

In any case, I would suggest saving up an emergency fund to the point that you are not scared of losing your job. I understand making that people must make commitments (car payments, mortgages, student loans, etc.) and that the risk of not paying them off is always there. But I would hope that a millionaire of all people has enough collateral for a loan if necessary, and that they would have good enough credit to be approved.

If you have your finances in order, you should not be scared of losing your job. Having actual fear from the thought means that maybe your assets aren't working for you (they are all deprecating assets or the cost of their upkeep is higher than the return). The one thing that can and should terrify you is illness or injury that makes you unable to work.

> If you're making enough to sustain a $2M net worth, either you are skilled enough to be able to find another job quickly (highly experienced individuals are always in demand) and you are just not confident enough to realize your worth—or, you are not skilled enough to get another job quickly and are being paid above your worth.

As someone who was out of work for ~13 months during the dotcom bust; this is absolutely false. Sometimes, things work out such that getting a new job is more complicated than just having a good skill set. And honestly, the idea that "if you can't find a another job quickly, you're clearly not very good at your job" is flat out insulting.

> I would suggest saving up an emergency fund to the point that you are not scared of losing your job.

13 months eats a lot of runway.

> And honestly, the idea that "if you can't find a another job quickly, you're clearly not very good at your job" is flat out insulting.

To be clear, I was only referring to leadership or management roles (given the context of a millionaire in this industry). At that point in your career I would expect one to have many career connections and/or enough sheer charisma and experience that makes landing a job doable if not a breeze.

It's not meant to be particularly insulting, just realistic.

> As someone who was out of work for ~13 months during the dotcom bust; this is absolutely false.

I didn't consider exceptional events such as the dotcom bust, or the 2008 financial crisis or the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent inflation. If we include those, I do agree that if makes sense to fear losing your job.

I do concede that we've had multiple "once-in-a-lifetime" industry upsets in a very short while and with that context it could make sense to panic. But in normal circumstances, I still think fearing job loss as a millionaire comes from somewhere more emotional/instinctual than rational.

It makes especially... interesting reading to those of us from the global South. To make $2 mil at my current salary, I will have to work for about 100-150 years, saving every penny and spending nothing, and I make decent money by our standards. There's even no relatively safe way to make some smart investments (which I imagine is how most of this money was acquired) because of incessant economical crises and non-existence of startup culture.

Man, some people here are completely out of touch with the average Eathlican. I'll have to show this discussion to my friends.

With that kind of money you could just... you know, move pretty much anywhere on the planet and live comfortably for many years, until a good opportunity comes up. Depending on the place, it might last you the entire lifetime (see my salary above).

(Who are Eathlicans? I find no search results.)

Earthling maybe?

I'm not one of these rich people that drives a gold-plated Lamborghini, like my obnoxious boss with his huge collection of supercars.

I just drive a regular, normal Lamborghini - like my father, and his father before him.

> I'm constantly surprised how many well-off people try to pass themselves off as "one of the poors".

The amount of people I've seen on here saying "It's just not an option to quit Google/Meta no matter how awful they are, I have a mortgage to pay!" even when the tech job market was still red-hot is quite incredible.

For a software engineer, or really most professionals, $2M really is not _that_ much in terms of retirement.

It’s absolutely enough to live a frugal retirement on, but not some sort of massive nest egg. You can safely withdrawal about $80k/year from that without it diminishing.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s the average income in the USA, but most deep career professionals would be taking a step down in terms of purchasing power. No real source of income means you can’t really finance anything. Major purchases are essentially pulled straight from that nest egg.

Try having a chronic health condition. My ability to continue walking will at some point depend on paying doctors to replace part of my skeleton; that doesn't come cheap in America.

I wasn't speaking to exceptions. There will always be those who require ridiculous amounts of money to live comfortably—this is not the norm.

Hip and knee replacements are amongst the most common surgeries performed. I'm quite unusual in how young my issue struck, but everyone gets older.

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